It has been an interesting year so far. As usual we tend to keep our thoughts around Ian and his activities. He's had a successful first year at college and is looking forward to more of the same next year. He has worked hard in his classes and finished the 2nd semester with a 3.91 GPA (3.87 cumulative). For next year's 2nd semester he'll apply for overseas study in New Zealand as part of a program that his university participates in. Being away to college has not slowed him down much in his connection with Scouting - he has been very active with his leadership roles in the Order of the Arrow, organizing meetings and strengthening the ceremonies team. For the summer he'll be the Director of Nature and Wilderness at a day camp in a town next to ours. It's a job Taylor's mother gave him a lead on, recommending him as just the guy for the job. Taylor too finished a great freshman year at her college. For the summer she is helping out at the ballet school she attended in her town and working at the ice cream stand at the local shopping plaza.
Carol continues to work on genealogy and scrapbooking projects. She and Lois have taken care of most of the details for Margaret and their trip to England and Sweden in July. They'll meet up with Bev and Lena in England. Earlier this week Carol had surgery on her left middle finger to have a cyst removed. That went well and is on the mend.
For me it's the usual. My ongoing side projects continue, the town newsletter/website and the church newsletter. I also put together the town's annual report. I'm still enjoying blogging though I'm not as regular at it as I used to be. I expect to get back to 3 or 4 times a week if I can just improve my time management skills. I also enjoy keeping up with what my sister Judi and my niece Samantha are up to by reading their blogs. There are a bunch of other blogs I've bookmarked that I check in on of people I don't even know but they're interesting to read. My involvement with the scouts has declined though Carol's role as the advancement chair is still quite active. Because Carol's vacation time will be used up for her trip and with Ian working through the summer it most likely will be just Patches and I vacationing at the camp in August. Carol might join me at the beginning or at the end of the week. The diet I started at the first of the year has gone very well and I've reached my initial goal of losing 25 lbs., so I now weigh 180 lbs. and feel a lot better than I did before which has eliminated a couple of problems I was having. Next I'll reassess what I want to do accomplish weightwise and continue to improve the nutritional values of what I eat and figure out an exercise program I can follow. Part of my success has been regular walking - I try to walk over 10,000 steps a day which includes a 3 miler to reach my daily goal. The other key to success has been Carol's assistance with meal planning, discussion of things we've learned about and we walk together on weekends. She has lost weight as well, plus has an exercise regiment she sticks to.
That's it for the abridged version of the e-mail. Ian is away this weekend to an OA Conclave. For today Carol dived into her weekend chores and had them taken care of by lunchtime. With the expectation of damp weather today I took to the garage attic to find clean out stuff we never use and some of the other junk. Carol joined me after awhile and after we had a truckload I mowed
the back lawn as it hadn't started raining yet. We ate lunch then headed out to the bulky waste transfer station. Came home, did a three mile walk and upon returning promptly took a nap. Rough day. Tonight's Netflix is "Pan's Labyrinth", a fairy tale for adults, it received 3 Oscars. In Spanish with subtitles I believe. I'll give you the short review tomorrow.
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